Hail Caesar at Camp Cromwell 16/08/11

Steve's Romans
v.
Jim & Mike's Carthaginians

Between us we scraped up enough 28mm figs to get a battle under way.

Steve deployed his cavalry division of 3 HC in the centre, an infantry divison of 2 Legionaries & a Veletes on his left and another infantry divison of 3 Legionaries & 1 Velete on his right.

Jim commanded 2 HC & a Celtic chariot unit on the left.  Mike had 2 infantry divisions: 3 warbands with 2 slingers in the centre and 3 medium infantry (scutari) on the right.

The Romans won the dice off and got 1st move.  Their cavalry rushed forward towards the warbands, while their infantry advanced only slowly on the flanks.

The right hand Roman cavalry bounced off the warband it attacked.  The other 2 Roman cavalry units rode straight over their opposition.  The Carthagian centre division was broken and the remants had to flee.  It looked like game over already, but the Punes soldiered on.  Their infantry on their right charged forward v. the Roman left and the cavalry wheeled right to attack the Roman right.

The dice gods relented on Mike and with 3 units to 2 & a half routed the Roman left. 

On the other flank the lead Roman infantry unit was routed by heavy cavalry supported by chariots.  But the cavalry wa sin turn destroyed by the Roman second line.

The battle now became a race as Mike tried to bring his infantry across into the Roman rear while Steve tried to take out Jim's cavalry.

The Punic left had an interesting choice to make: 1) Try and take out the foot.
2) Try & take out the horse,or:
3) Fall back & wait for the infantry to come over.
They chose to try to break the Roman foot before their cavalry could come up.  They failed to break through and then they broke under the combined attack of horse & foot before Mike could come to the rescue.

Although quite a small battle by HC standards, it was a very enjoyable game.  We're looking forward to a bigger one next week.